This invention relates generally to fluidic components and more specifically to a novel way of sensing fluid properties which affect viscosity such as density, temperature, change in fluid constituents and, of course, viscosity itself.
Current concentration sensors have a number of severe and presently unavoidable drawbacks among which are the fact that such concentration sensors are excessively noisy, depend upon elements and/or circuits utilizing moving parts and components, and have a tendency towards rather large sizes and high power consumption.
It is, therefore, a primary object of this invention to provide a device for sensing fluid properties which consists of a single element having no physical moving parts.
A more specific object of this invention is to provide a fluid sensing element which is laminar in operation with a dynamic range in the neighborhood of 5,000 or better.
An additional object is to provide a fluidic sensor of small size and low power consumption.
Still another object of this invention is to provide a fluidic concentration sensor that does not require external or added vacuum sources to draw in a fluid sample.
Yet an additional object is to provide a low output impedance device which readily matches into current technology laminar proportional amplifiers.
These and other objects and aspects of the present invention will become more readily apparent with respect to the following description, the appended claims and the FIGURE which illustrates a planar view of one embodiment of the invention.